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06 Sept 2025
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06 Sept 2025
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Jake Smith and James Edgar who were first and second
Derry City parkrun is part of the global parkrun initiative, along with over 800 events in the UK and almost 200 events in Ireland as a whole.
Each week the Derry City group organises an inclusive event. A free, timed, 5k run. It starts at Foyle Marina and goes along the quayside path, over the Peace Bridge and into St Columb’s park and back again. The participants include a wide spectrum of people from walkers and beginning runners, through local club runners, to the fastest amongst us. It welcomes runners with a child in a push chair and with a dog on a short lead.
Last Saturday (29th March 2025) the long standing course record was broken. Usually at parkrun the only animals the runners need to look out for are dogs - on short leads. On Saturday there was a herd of stags. Tom Baird was running in Derry as part of his stag weekend. With him were a dozen or more of his running friends from Cardiff University, including some notably fast runners.
Jake Smith finished first, breaking the five year old course record, held by local man, Conor Bradley’s since New Year’s Day 2020. Jake’s new record time was: 14 mins 17 second. James Edgar in second place also broke the old record, with a time of 14:40. James Heneghan, Ben Claridge, James McCrae and Piers Copel (all from Cardiff group) finished in a bunch all faster than 15:25. Tom Baird, the groom of the stag party, was about a minute behind in what, on a normal Saturday, would have been a remark-worthy time of 16:32.
Derry City parkrun often welcomes visitors from other parkrun events. A benefit of being part of parkrun, is that once a runner registers with the local event, they can participate at any parkrun event in more than 20 countries around the world.
Event Director of Derry City parkrun, George Row said: “This was a special bit of Saturday morning excitement for us.”
“In the Café afterwards there was much discussion about whether there was a local runner who could ‘take the record back’. Is there anyone amongst the local athletic and running clubs who could take on this challenge?” “We hope the rest of the stag party’s weekend went well and wish Tom all the best for his wedding and the future.”
Saturday’s full results are here: https://www.parkrun.org.uk/
As a result Derry City parkrun was featured at the top of the “10 fastest parkruns of the week”:
Jake Smith has previously featured in national and international running events:
https://www.thepowerof10.info/
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